Yesterday night, July 26, the dreaded Niger Delta Avengers accused the Federal government of taking too much time with its supposed dialogue with militants in order to purchase drones to attack its operatives blowing up oil facilities in the south-south region.

The militants alleged that the drones were being bought from the United States of America and were being expected to be delivered in Nigeria by the end of August.

NDA made the claims just as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) yesterday acted in response to the statement accredited to Lt. General Tukur Buratai, the Chief of Army Staff, who was quoted to have said that the Nigerian Army was getting ready to battle the Niger Delta militants should the current negotiation going on between the people of the region and the federal government fail, describing such statement as insensitive.

According to a statement endorsed by the spokesman for the group, Mudoch Agbinibo, the group said its intelligence agency had established that the said peace talk or dialogue was a delay tactic for the purchase of the drones, adding that as a result, the federal government was not serious about holding talks with the NDA but made it look like it was the militant group that was not disposed to dialogue.

“The NDA intelligence agency gathered that the said peace talk or dialogue by the federal government is a delay tactic employed by the federal government, to enable their purchased drones that are said to arrive latest end of August from the US.

“This whole thing makes us to wonder what kind of country is this? We can all see that President Muhammadu Buhari-led government is fraud. They are not serious about any dialogue and made it seems the NDA are the ones not ready for dialogue.”

The fearless group nevertheless made it clear that it was not disturbed whether the drones were purchased from Europe and US, noting that it won’t stop it from executing its threat of bringing the nation’s economy to zero.

“Mr. President you can purchase all the drones in Europe and US. It won’t stop the NDA from bringing the country’s economy to zero.

“The worse you can do is to kill poor innocent people which the military is good at but know the Nigeria economy will suffer. Also noted (sic), you will not be able to export one litre of crude in the Niger Delta.”

The Niger Delta Avengers further advised the federal government to “just intensify the oil exploration in the North-east, as for the ones in the Niger Delta, forget about it because the Nigeria Government won’t export a drop from our land.”